Sunday 25 September 2016

Springbalance Litfass (or vice versa) 1977




This is a one-off private pressed album, sadly.  It's been a favourite of mine for some time now.  Just from the titles you can tell we are dealing with some very very creative types, especially when the first song right off the bat is called Salmonella.  Guitarist Dietrich Jeske seems to have been the mastermind of the band.  Consider the track Pull in Moll:





I love how the chords here throughout wander between e minor (the moll of the title) to b minor, d minor, G7, having normally nothing respectable to do with each other, without any warning.  Yet the cohesion is palpable, despite the fact these progressions break the rules of musical theory.

To me that's one of the hallmarks of great art: using a well-established or culturally traditional template, the great artist is able to break the rules with such finesse that we are compelled to agree: the rule book must be rewritten just for them, for this one incident, or their many incidents, of delinquent misbehaviour.  Thus they enlarge piece by piece what is possible for us humans.  (Think, for example, of when George Martin in 1962 or whatever decided to add a string quartet to the otherwise trite McCartney ballad Yesterday-- how many acoustic guitar songs were then subsequently fitted out with the same...)

Our final poem Frühlingsgefühle continues the very meditative and melancholy tone of the album with its tender violin intro.  An augmented major chord is then used, with descending chord patterns, to good effect to express the obstacles of sadness in our daily lives, with the downgoing melody describing the pain.
(Now imagine my shock when I found out the title is equivalent to the English "getting frisky!")



I guess some things in art are just inexplicable.  Like how people can accomplish so much with pure creativity and original ideas...


8 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    1. The link is expired. Would you mind re-uploading it?

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    2. The link is 'expired'. Would you mind re-posting it?

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    3. https://www.sendspace.com/pro/dl/vhhmpj

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  2. Hi
    Very good idea and Thank you !But I don' t think it's so much hard to write good music with these chords together ! It' s a theme which turns on itself like a circle !

    See you soon !

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  3. Hi, Julian. Can you repost this one? Thanks!

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  4. https://www.sendspace.com/pro/dl/vhhmpj

    works

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